In the past, retailing generally required physical retail premises, such as a shop or store, which held and displayed goods or provided information about services, which a customer could then select and purchase in the store. A customer enters the premises and usually select goods from shelves or displays, and carries them to a counter where a sales assistant will accept payment, and usually wrap the articles being purchased, which the customer will then carry from the store. Even when selling services, like in a travel agency for example, shops exist where customers can browse and select brochures and suchlike, before discussing their likely travel purchase with a sales assistant or travel agent, before having the assistant record the sale, accept payment, and pass over details of the travel arrangement selected and provide tickets to the customer.
These days such retail establishments are often computer aided, with retailers utilising computerised supply chain systems, and sometimes using delivery systems, to provide goods directly to the customer's home, especially with bulky items, for example. But the customers usually do not interact with a software assisted, or online, sales system within such shops or stores.
More recently there has been the rapidly developing “online retail” system, generally following the “Amazon”™ model, where customers shop via their home computers connected to retail sites located on the internet. In this arrangement, customers see images of the goods they may wish to buy, together with information about the goods or services involved. The customer typically registers their identification information at the online store. The user also provides a means of payment like a credit card or PayPal™ account, and records their address for shipping their purchases. After selecting the goods or services to be purchased, the customer agrees to the purchase, affirms the payment, and then some time later accepts the delivery of the physical goods that are shipped to their homes. Sometimes, when the purchase is a service or an electronic file like an airline ticket or e-Book, the item can be transferred directly to the user back over the internet.
However there are deficiencies with each of these retail methods, but there are advantages as well. It would therefore be useful if a new retailing system could be provided that avoids some of the disadvantages for each of these approaches, by using the advantages without the disadvantages. It would be even more useful if at least some the advantages from each of these different retail approaches could be combined into a single system.
The method of letting a customer purchase goods or services by visiting retail premises has many advantages. The customer is accustomed to this method, and often gains pleasure from shopping in this manner. The customer can inspect real samples of the goods or services and information about them. It helps to sell goods if the customer can see and touch the goods directly. Clothing can be tried on to determine that is the correct size. Whereas purchasing these same items via a computer over the internet only permits the customer to see photographs or a description of the item, and just from these, the customer is often uncertain or even suspicious about the quality, size, texture, weight or other attributes of the physical goods.
On the other hand, an advantage of online retailing is that the customer is often able to access a much wider range of products, including many different models, options and sizes. Since the products available to purchase are just provided as images, the actual goods remain in warehouses until they are purchased and delivered, making the system more cost effective. Whereas with purchasing goods in a shop, the size of the premises has to be large enough to hold all the different models, styles, and sizes for the goods that customers might be interested in buying. There is a practical limit to this, and so retail premises usually only stock a smaller range for the goods than would be available with online retailing, where every possible variation for the goods or services being presented to the customer can in theory be provided, as the user merely sees electronic representations that do not take up appreciable space.
With physical retailing there are overheads that the shop keeper must pay, such as rent for the premises and salaries for sufficient sales people, which increase and correlate with the quantity of different goods being made available for purchase. These additional costs are often not necessary or are much less with online retailing.
Retail premises usually have at least some sales assistants available to help customers. A good salesperson can increase sales by using persuasion as well as providing helpful assistance to the customer. While online retailing can also make a salesperson available, normally using a microphone and speaker, or via text messaging, or video interaction, this always lacks the personal touch that helps with the sales when the salesperson is dealing directly and personally with the customer. A remotely located sales assistant, which is the only arrangement possible for online retailing, cannot handle the goods, or know clearly what the customer is experiencing when the product is being selected and a purchase choice is being made, and is therefore at a disadvantage.
Accordingly, it would be useful to provide a solution that preferably avoids or ameliorates any one or more of the disadvantages present in the prior approaches to retail, or which may provide another alternative to such approaches.